Midnight Insomnia
by words without
Summary: -Royai- Roy's mind plagues him worst while fast asleep. Invariably, Riza is in his dreams...invariably, she dies.


AN- Hello all. Another Royai one-shot...and my first ever lemon. Well, mildish lemon. I decided to post this seperately, instead of with my other collection of one-shots, because I didn't feel like bumping up the rating on _T.C.a.T.F.L._--and this one certainly requires a M rating. A mild lemon...but a lemon just the same.

Written because there is a sad lack of good, well-written Royai smut here. Dunno if you can classify this as 'well-written', but hey. I tried. Frankly, I'm just tired of seeing all the roy/ed. 

And yes, I despise the title, but it's the only thing I could come up with. **

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**Midnight Insomnia**

It's the middle of the night, extremely late, when Roy wakes up, suddenly terrified that Riza's not there.

He turns quickly, heart thudding obscenely fast—there's no reason for him to be this nervous, no reason for him to have woken up at all. Riza's there, of course…where else would she be?

He looks at her, sleeping soundly next to him, caught in a beam of moonlight coming in from the window. She looks so _beautiful,_ lying there, but even this ethereal sight isn't enough to ease his anxiety….anxiety over nothing at all.

He can't help it….in his warped state of mind, the bed sheet draped over her otherwise naked form looks too much like a burial shroud.

Vainly, he attempts to reason with himself: obviously everything's fine, nothing to worry about here, right? When that doesn't work—it never does—he sighs and gets out of bed, careful as he does so to not wake the woman beside him, since she's a notoriously light sleeper.

He ends up, as per usual, by the window, gazing out at the darkened city below, wondering _why_ this keeps happening to him, night after night. _Why _does he keep waking up like this, scared out of his mind that something's happened to her, when in reality nothing has?

_It's these damn nightmares again,_ he thinks idly, _these damn nightmares keep waking me up._ He'd expected them to fade once he moved in with Riza, and for months it seemed as though they had…but recently, without any apparent cause, they'd returned, in some senses worse then ever….

Because now he can never remember them when he wakes up; he can never remember the details, can never figure out what it was that had startled him awake. All he's left with afterwards is the all-too-familiar sinking in the pit of his stomach, the dull, aching dread that he can't ever quite shake off. It'd be better if he could remember the dreams, because at least then he would know what he was afraid off.

He runs a hand through his messy, disheveled hair, staring off into the nothingness he can see from the window. His heart is still racing, still caught in his throat. His thoughts turn, as they always do during these nightly bouts of insomnia, to Riza, to the slender, blond sharpshooter he's so infatuated with.

The slender, blond sharpshooter he's so scared shitless of losing.

What if tonight's the last one they have? What if something happens tomorrow, if Roy's hopes are shattered, if something rips him awake from this dream? Who knows how many days and nights they have left together. Who knows what the consequences are for being both chained to the military and desperately in love.

Roy worries that there's disaster lurking in wait for them around every corner, but he doesn't consider himself paranoid. After all, it's not paranoia if the danger is real.

If something does happen, if he does lose her….Roy doesn't even want to imagine what that would be like. He _can't_ imagine it. The only thing he _can_ picture himself doing in a situation like that—besides screaming, besides cursing, besides killing himself off—is begging for one more second, one more tantalizing _second_, to spend with her, to savor. Which is a stupid thing to beg for, because he also knows that once that second was up, he'd plead again, like the greedy bastard he is, for just one more second, just one more…it'd become a never-ending cycle, frantic and overwhelmed.

One more second wouldn't be enough. No amount of time could ever be. Even if they both have the fortune to die of old age, years and years from now—even if they both live for hundreds of years, it will never be enough. Roy will never, _ever _reach a moment in his life when he is willing to let go.

He turns back to the bed, and his eyes fall upon Riza's sleeping form, dragged to her like moths to the flame. He thinks back to only a few hours ago, when they had been wrapped around each other, making fierce, passionate love. He remembers kissing parts of her that aren't normally kissed, remembers tasting her and marveling at the smooth-sweetness of her skin. In memories like that, she seems so _alive_, that it's hard to envision her as anything but.

And that's what makes it so horrible, because losing someone as wonderfully, determinedly _alive_ as she is, would be a hell to which there could be no comparison. Roy'd take the fire and brimstone one any day.

It really does suck though, if he thinks about it long enough, how it is that they're connected: a colonel and his protector. Not that he minds being watched over by a woman like her—even if he doesn't _need _the watching over, as he's told her countless times, even if that _isn't_ really her job at all—but still…

Roy needs her, no doubt about that...needs her fighting by his side, needs to know that she is there—

But at the same time, he wishes she wasn't. It'd be safer that way.

Because if she keeps fighting beside him, he might lose her, and he couldn't—wouldn't—survive that final blow. Riza is not some fragile little girl made of glass, he understands and loves this about her. And yet, he still sometimes wishes she was. Girls made of brittle glass are far less likely to stick their necks out, in his experience, and far more content to simply stay on the sidelines—

_where she won't get hurt..._

--and let others do their fighting for them. Roy loves that Riza is tough, loves that she's strong…but hates that those qualities seem to automatically make her a greater target. It's a bitter (and confusing) choice: he needs her there, but doesn't _want_ her there, even though he does…unfortunately, he's not sure which choice is the lesser of the two evils.

It's a mute question anyway. Riza will never leave him to fight alone.

Roy can't help but wonder if that's really a blessing.

It is for _him,_ of course, but for her? It's hard to say. He only wishes he could know for certain that she will always be safe.

Outside, an owl hoots, its call mournful and foreboding. Shivering—from the cold, he tells himself sternly—he turns and crawls back into bed, feeling sick. He draws Riza to him, clutching at her against whatever demons might appear. Sure, she can protect herself…but just knowing a fact doesn't always make it true, and Roy is still extremely scared.

Riza shifts against him, picks up on his trembling (she's perceptive even in sleep), and opens her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

Roy doesn't answer, just holds her tighter. She understands anyway, though; she's been through this before, countless times.

"Another nightmare?"

He nods, slowly. "I-...I don't remember it, really, but…"

Riza reaches up and strokes his cheek; her hand, calloused from years of handling a rifle, is cool against his skin. Her eyes, usually masked into a look of formal indifference when out facing the world, are softer now….are sadder. She knows, even if Roy doesn't, what his dreams are about. They always have the same lingering quality: loss.

Invariably, Riza is in Roy's dreams…and invariably, she dies.

Roy's mind plagues him worst while fast asleep. Why this is has never been clear, although Hughes used to comment (when he was alive to comment) that it was a sign of his mental shields caving in at night. Whatever the case, nightmares are Roy's sole visitor in the dead of night. He doesn't dream of happy occasions—his much-desired promotion to president, perhaps, or that day, so far off, when he can finally marry Riza—but of miserable ones, ones that have both happened and that hopefully never will. Hughes used to say that he dreamt of his Elysia each night; Roy dreams of Ishbal, of rotting corpses and burning sands. Hughes used to dream of his wedding to Gracia; Roy dreams, not of any wedding, but of standing alone, at a grave, blood dripping from his fingers, oozing from the stone—

He dreams of Riza's final resting place.

"Roy."

"I…I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you up—"

She shakes her head. "No…Roy, it's fine. It's ok."

He looks at her, nestled in his arms. She's so beautiful…

And all of a sudden his mouth is on hers again; it's a crushing, desperate kiss, filled with fear and uncertainty and above all, a silent plea: let these dreams be not foreshadowing, let this one moment hold.

Again and again, he kisses her, their tongues entwining, crushing her against him because he needs to hold onto her to keep himself from crumbling. His one hand nestles in her soft-silk hair; the other drops down lower and lower, pausing for a second to caress each of her breasts in turn—Riza sighs softly, an almost-moan—before continuing on its downward journey. It skims over her stomach, drifts across her thighs, dips in between her legs.

Then Riza _is_ moaning, as he inserts a finger, and he almost moans with her when he feels her gentle writhing underneath.

"Roy…!"

Riza lets out a very un-Rizalike cry, her voice breathy. She opens her legs wider—thank god, because Roy isn't sure he can hold off much longer—and within seconds his cock has replaced his finger inside of her.

And there's passion, wild passion, groaning, emotions released, they're lost in the heat, drowning in the flames, caught up in a man-made firestorm of something too amazing to be expressed, and it's perfect—perfect—perfect—

And it ends, and Roy pulls out of Riza and collapses besides her, heart still racing, body covered in sweat.

"Promise me." (It's a few moments before he has breath enough to speak, and the words come out thick and uncertain. ) "Promise me you'll never leave."

Riza, curled up against him, realizes fully the folly of making such a pledge, because how does she know what the future holds?

She promises him anyway. She knows it's what he needs to hear.

Besides, she needs to hear it too.

Roy doesn't fall asleep again that night. Instead he sits and wonders, and tries to comfort himself with the knowledge that Riza's promises are never broken.

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AN-- Like I said, my first ever lemon of any kind. So reviews are doubly-wanted, so I can get some constructive crit and find out what I did wrong. 

...I need to end my obsession with hyphens... 

(**EDIT-...some day in October '06...;...:** decided to get rid of some of those blasted hyphens. thanks for all advice given on this!)


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